


Enthusiastic Participation

by thealmightyh



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Book/TV Series Mashup, Clothing Kink, Crack, Crowley's ridiculously tight fucking pants, Embarrassment, Humor, Inappropriate Humor, M/M, Sexual Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 03:49:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19433332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealmightyh/pseuds/thealmightyh
Summary: A series of irreverent vignettes from the 50s to present where Crowley keeps up with the fashion of the times and Aziraphale has a veryspecificset of interests. 5+1 excuse for the 50s greaser, the 60s punk underground, the 70s wedding kilt, the 80s that didn't happen, and the 90s Canadian denim. Crowley makes anunexpectedeffort.





	Enthusiastic Participation

**Author's Note:**

> **I'm on tumblr now...[HERE](https://thealmightyh.tumblr.com/)**
> 
> Absolutely self-indulgent nonsense with no literary merit to speak of.
> 
> * * *

**Enthusiastic Participation**

_1953 - Unnamed Bar, Los Angeles._

The bar was smokey and musty. Aziraphale didn't bother to remember the name of it as it was scheduled for arson later that week, some business with a rather particular gentleman by the name of John Rosselli. A shame, considering they mixed an excellent Tom Collins. He checked his pocket watch and smiled weakly at a suspect looking fellow with a set of knuckle tattoos and then stared resolutely at his drink. Behind him, familiar ozone.

"Aziraphale! You know, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pick you out of the rabble but thank god for the tweed."

"It's vintage, thank-you." Aziraphale defended himself without turning around.

"Not if you bought it new. Doesn't count."

"Oh and I suppose you're quite snappily dr— _oh_." Having swivelled on his bar stool, Aziraphale suddenly felt very, very dry.

Crowley's hair was new—full, parted over in an oily curve, a stray strand hanging over his sunglasses. He was wearing a broken-in black leather jacket, a dark Henley, and a white t-shirt. The smell of leather and tobacco hit Aziraphale in a plume—Marlboro's—sweet and deep. But the jeans! Levi's so tight they must have been dipped on, a strip of a skin teasing a barely-there waist, advertising Crowley’s skinny thighs for miles.

Aziraphale choked on his Tom Collins.

"You all right, angel?"

"Fine. Excellent. Very good." Aziraphale squeaked, and Crowley gave him a funny look.

"Swimming. Finish up your drink, we've gotta go."

"What? Now?"

"Uh, yeah, about now." Aziraphale started to protest just as the suspect looking fellow with the knuckle tattoos stood up, and Crowley, weighing his options, punched him in the nose.

"Wait, I—" Aziraphale dropped his glass as Crowley hauled him to his feet and dragged him towards the door, several other suspect fellows snapping open their switchblades.

"No time, gotta go."

"Crowley!"

"So I owe them a little bit of money—" Crowley shoved Aziraphale outside "—okay lot of money. Made some bets, went a little pear, nothing to worry about."

"They had knives!"

"And guns, we just didn't get to those yet." Crowley straddled a shiny black motorcycle and revved the engine. "Hurry up, hop on!"

"That's a—a motorbike!" Aziraphale didn't wring his hands, but only because he only had enough dignity left for one flavour of panic.

"AJS 18, latest model. The import was biblical. GET ON."

Aziraphale got on. Crowley roared out of the parking lot in a cloud of dust. "Now, that was exciting." He shouted over the road noise.

"Why didn't you pay them? Or discorporate them?" Aziraphale yelled and grabbed Crowley around the waist as they took a corner at a speed that would have separated a mortal’s holy tea cakes from their metaphysical mustard.

"Paying is honest, murder is cheating," Crowley yelled back over his left shoulder. "Besides, I told them that you'd pay before you got there, but then I felt bad."

***

_1966 - The UFO Club, Central London._

Aziraphale felt claustrophobic. He was standing in an unfamiliar venue in a rather unseemly part of Central London waiting for Crowley to arrive. He had protested, naturally. He didn't like loud music, or clubs, or anything with a tune he hadn't heard a hundred times before. But Crowley had insisted over the phone. This was a once in an immortality treat.

"Syd Barret.” He’d said. “Do you know what usually happens to mortals when they catch sight of one of us in the bread and ugly? All wiggly and with the..." Crowley paused, making a sweeping gesture that could be felt through the telephone line. "Eyes and such."

"There's nothing wrong with my ethereal form." Aziraphale countered, haughty.

"Listen I'm not judging, I'm only saying the Almighty was a little heavy-handed with the—your whole—that's not the point," Crowley said. "The point is, this fellow saw one of you multi-ocular buggers, and he didn't go all half-cattle, know what I mean?

"I have no idea what you mean."

"Half-cattle it's a—just show up, angel."

"Fine."

"Fine."

Aziraphale had thought up a great many clever comebacks after hanging up wherein he told Crowley that in no uncertain terms he would _not_ be going, and that he was annoying, and that his clothes were annoying, and also he was a very bad demon indeed. But since he had already agreed, and hung up, he went. Grudgingly.

Crowley arrived moments before the light show started.

"What's happening?"

"Music."

"Yes, but what's _happening_ , Crowley."

"Music." He answered, grinning. "Shut up and listen."

Aziraphale listened. He learned later that what he was listening to was called _Interstellar Overdrive_. He had heard it before, in shapes, in moments, in absences of time filled only by the celestial hum of the mind. Like a mortal TV set off-channel: grey and fuzz, fuzz and grey, until it was so loud that your ears made sound to fill the void.

Stumbling out of the club, Aziraphale felt drunk in a way that neither wine nor hard liquor could reproduce. He was brain drunk. He felt giddy and bubbly and—

"Want?"

Crowley was lighting a cigarette with a flashy silver lighter, offering him a drag. In the club, blinded by the light show, Aziraphale hadn't noticed that Crowley was wearing a skintight v-neck, dark, or a tie knotted so uncivilly it was upsetting. He noticed now, along with some kind of black corduroy vest, but the pants... Red and satiny, suspenders dangling from the hips, and so very, very tight. There was a gap where the fat of his thighs should have been, but Crowley was angles and elbows and… and good lord why was he so _long_. 

"See something you like?" Crowley leaned against the brickwork outside of the club, exhaling tobacco smoke in a halo. "It's the pants, isn't it?"

"It's nothing of the sort!" Aziraphale turned a very interesting shade of puce. "They are—you're just—-well it's a might bit indecent."

"Hmmm." Crowley butted his barely-smoked cigarette on the heel of his boot, hiding a wry smile in his vest. "See you next decade, Aziraphale."

He tipped a hat that he wasn't wearing and Aziraphale's knees felt stupid.

***

_1979 - Private Residence, Edinburgh_

Aziraphale arrived second for once. It was a political soiree, canapes and champagne. Britain's first female prime minister. Margaret Thatcher. Quite a leap in gender equality, certainly for the greater good. Aziraphale wasn't sure whose expansive home he was at—someone important—lovely party service, though. He had been offered champagne twice before he even made it from the coat room to the receiving area, and then twice more after.

He took the first glass to be polite, and then a second because the first seemed to finish itself. Someone was playing Vivaldi; it was a positively lovely party until...

"Crowley."

"Angel!" Crowley looked delighted, or, perhaps already very drunk. "What an unexpected surprise."

What an unexpected surprise. Well, wasn't that just a fine collection of words.

Crowley was wearing a tight tailored suit jacket, fine. A tie, also fine. A belt and a buckle, good, blessed, fine. But after that was the kilt. Green, navy, black. Not fine. Crowley's knees were so... bony. But his legs, those were white and lean, kilt hose rolled right up tight. Brogues. Aziraphale swallowed hard, wondering when the room had gotten so terribly awfully warm.

But then, there was the sporran. Bold and heavy and silver and falling right where... if he did... if he had... one of those. It had a little silver snake on it, the absolute bugger.

"You all right, Aziraphale?"

"Spiffing."

"Spiffing, eh?" Crowley sucked his teeth. "You were looking at my sporran."

"I was not!" He was.

"You were."

"I wasn’t! Crowley why is it that you insist on—"

"Tempting you?"

"No!"

"Hmmm," Crowley hummed, cat and canary. "Whatever you say. If it matters, I came from a wedding. Your lot seems very keen on those, all legitimate and such. Lovely groom. I tried him after the cake."

***

1980-1989 - Everywhere in general.

Aziraphale didn't speak to Crowley throughout the 80s. Partly because he was still mad about 1979, but mostly because spandex had made a comeback.

***

_1998 - Forillon National Park, Quebec._

Aziraphale loved the fresh air, and there was a lot of it to be found in the colonies.

There had been many stirrings and comeuppances about the Quebec secession, but that was a familiar tragedy. He'd stepped sideways only a few dozen miles for a little nature, let mortals be as mortals be. The foundation of political upheaval was always rotten at the core, so it was more a matter of divine spackle at the end to patch it all up again.

Besides, the French and the English were always poor sports no matter what continent they were on. Heaven had readied, after all, the Revolution had been a bit of a gaff. But, things were different in the New World. Fewer beheadings, for one. For two, Canadians tended to settle things. The whole scrap had ended in a formal outline of how exactly one was politely permitted to leave the country, and everyone agreed to agree, but also to disagree at a later time with legal representation. It was refreshing to visit a country that just... got along. 

"Never took you for the camping type, Aziraphale." Crowley appeared seemingly out of nowhere with a sly smile and thick plaid overcoat paired with the most situationally inappropriate denim in existence. How on earth he had managed to find Aziraphale in the middle of nothing and nowhere America’s fine French hat was a puzzle for another day.

"No."

"No? What do you mean, no?" But Crowley was suddenly alone with nothing but fresh air, wide acreage, a moose with mildly amorous intentions, and the blasted Québécois. 

***

_2018 - The Bookshop, Soho_

The world didn't end, that was nice.

They had dinner at the Ritz, that was also nice.

Crowley showed up at the bookshop a week afterwards, give or take a saunter, not even bothering to knock, and Aziraphale finally lost his temper.

"Must you always dress like that?"

"Like what?" Crowley asked, the smug, tight-trousered bastard.

"Like—" Aziraphale waved his hands all over "—that."

"It's the pants, isn't it?"

"Yes, fine. It's the pants." He went red despite himself. "I don't even know how you fit it—in there—that. Very impractical."

"Oh?" Was the amused reply.

"Well, it's... and I assume you have... so stop it right now." Aziraphale had reached a shade of humiliation yet uncategorized by man.

"Right." Crowley nodded. Then, he leaned close enough to tickle Aziraphale's ear as he whispered. "The thing is, I'm a little particular about the silhouette, angel. I cut a certain type of figure. So when it came down to picking the inny or the outy, I picked the inny."

"You picked the... what? Oh. _Oh_." The glow of Aziraphale's cheeks was currently being charted on several satellite systems and the Japanese had sent an intercontinental memo erring on the side of caution.

Crowley grinned entirely with his eyes.

_The Floor of the Bookshop 28 Minutes Later_

"Well," Aziraphale panted. He was currently using a very expensive oriental rug as a blanket. He had pulled it all the way up to his armpits for dignity's sake. "That was--"

"That was _fun_." Crowley leaned back next to him, absolutely stark naked. "Wanna go again?"

"What, right now?!"

"We can have breakfast first."

"How kind of you." Aziraphale said witheringly.

"Or."

"Or?"

Crowley peeled back the rug and straddled Aziraphale's thighs. "We can skip breakfast." He licked a wet stripe from nipple to navel. "Close the bookshop." _Good lord the teeth--!_ “And this time,” He rolled his narrow hips, “I’ll do all the dirty work.”

Aziraphale coughed, and the sign on the front door of the shop changed miraculously from ‘Sorry we’re closed’ to ‘Sorry we’re closed forever’. 

“That’s the ticket, Aziraphale. Enthusiastic participation.”


End file.
